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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Our eldest son turns 5 the day after tomorrow and there’s quite some excitement in the air over here. Since around easter he repeatedly asked when it would finally be his birthday. He could hardly endure his brother’s birthday 5 weeks ago and shed many tears of disappointment when little bro opened his presents.

He “wrote” his invitations last weekend and handed them out last monday. Since then he is counting down and first thing in the morning he tells me how often he will have to go to sleep until his birthday. Beams and giggles and laughter. Love his excitement and cheerful anticipation (o:

His party theme is “Pirates” and when I decided he wasn’t too old for a birthday crown, I quickly chose this pirates print from my stash. It took about one hour to plan, draw, cut, fuse and sew the crown and I think he will like it.

I used an interfacing I usually use for bags and it turned out quite sturdy. Then I added some velcro so it fits his head perfectly

I’m happy with how it turned out eventually and will make some more to give away as birthday presents (added to that already too long to-sew list). I guess without the planning it might be done in 45 minutes or less.

Birthday preparations continue tomorrow – I might show you more if I’m not too exhausted by tomorrow evening (o:

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Oh yes, I do love craft books. And there’s one that I bought just because I liked the cover and wanted to know what’s more inside ;o) And I wasn’t disappointed.

Imagesource: amazon.com

Jessica Levitt’s Modern Mix is all about combining your favourite prints with solids. So much inspiration! And in May I really made the cover quilt ;o)

Although I must confess that I changed the pattern a bit. It called for turn-under edges for the circles and I used raw edge appliqué instead. And I changed the dimensions according to my needs (baby quilt). I used Ann Kelle’s Urban Zoologie (again) and used my GO! Baby Circle Cutting Die. I had quite a hard time deciding on the background colour as Kelle’s colours are so bright and vibrant and I didn’t want to steal their show. But I am sooooooo pleased with how it turned out in the end!

I free motion quilted circles in different sizes all over the quilt – but behold! I cheated again – I was afraid of messing up the bigger ones so I traced around some large round objects (mostly lids) and quilted the shapes afterwards.

The only frustration is that I chose a zigzag stitch that is too narrow. Some circles start fraying and might be torn off entirely so I will have to secure them with additional stitches. Oh well.

You can find my initial post with more photos here. I’m going to link up to Craftbuds, you might want to hop over and have a look at what smarter people have come up with ;o)

1. Cutting
This fabric basket is made from a circle and a long rectangle.
First, decide on the size of the circle. Then you calculate the length of your rectangle. Remember what you learned in school? The cirumference of your circle is equal to 6,28 x radius of your circle. (Remember: 2 x pi x r) Some things you learned were really learned for life ;o) Oh, and add a generous seam allowance to your rectangle!
Choose height of your rectangle according to your needs.

3. Draw the circle onto your fabrics, either tracing a round shape or using your compass.

4. Cut out the cirles and the rectangles.

5. Lay out your rectangles right sides together and sew along one long side.

6. Open up and mark the centres of both raw long sides.

7. Take your lining fabric circle and your lining rectangle and lay them out right sides together.

8. Pin centre of rectangle to any point of your circle.

9. Pin all around the circle…

…until it looks like so:

10. Sew all around the circle, just remember to backstitch at the start and in the end to secure your seams.

Make sure you finish your seam in the exact place where you started it. Like so:

11. Repeat no. 7-10 and attach your outer fabric circle to your outer fabric rectangle. Afterwards it should look like this: a long tube with an open side.

12. Sew from one end to the other, leaving an opening in the lining fabric.

13. Cut back your seam allowance to 1/2”, turn inside out and close the opening (by hand or using your sewing machine). You might want to stitch around the top edge of your fabric basket once but that’s really up to you.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

I finally made the Sea Glass Blocks that Helen requested for “her” month September. She sent a great inspirational mosaic:

And here is what I came up with:

The small “glasses” are 0,5” squares and the bigger one are 1” squares. Quite a pain to sew… And then last night I discovered I wasn’t bright enough to measure and calculate. Not that it was that big news to me but it was annoying never the less… Block number one turned out to be too small and had to be unpicked first thing this morning. Aaaah!

However I am not unhappy with the final result and I even finished the signature block before I brought the kids home from kindergarten. So they are going to the mail tomorrow. The blocks. Not the kids. Or do you fancy a family addition, Helen?

You might want to check out the other sea glass blocks that my fellow members made for Helen, there’s a nice collection in our flickr pool.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Do you sometimes turn long denim jeans into shorts? Here’s an idea to re-use the denim legs you cut off:

For a more manly version: Simply cut out a matching denim circle for the bottom. Sew the circle to the raw edge (right sides together) and fold over the already hemmed seam. Done in under 20 minutes I dare say!

For the girly version I added a pink lining. Another 15 Minutes and you have a super quick last minute gift that you can fill with a bottle of wine and chocolate or tools and beer (for the guys in your life).
Let me know what you fill in this quick and modern gift! I’d love to hear it!